Windows Phone 8 is expected to be a pretty colossal update — so colossal, in fact, that some phone manufacturers are waiting until its release later this year before making serious flagship devices — however, there were two big questions surrounding its release. Will it work on older hardware, and will existing apps continue to work on the platform? While we still don’t know the answer to the first question, the latter was addressed by Microsoft in a blog post on Thursday. Yes, the rumors are true; existing apps will continue to work on Windows Phone 8.

On top of announcing this, the blog post also hinted at the demise of Silverlight as a development technology on Windows Phone. Microsoft’s Larry Lieberman, who penned the post, addressed the topic of Silverlight concerns by suggesting other great technologies to use when developing for Windows Phone:

We’ve also heard some developers express concern about the long term future of Silverlight for Windows Phone. Please don’t panic; XAML and C#/VB.NET development in Windows 8 can be viewed as a direct evolution from today’s Silverlight. All of your managed programming skills are transferable to building applications for Windows 8, and in many cases, much of your code will be transferable as well.

I founded and regularly wrote blog posts on GeekSmack from 2008 until 2011, when I failed at running a blog. I now write about Microsoft for Techie-Buzz. When not writing blog posts, I'm usually found designing websites and learning how to code. You should follow me on Twitter here.